Wet Days and Boots

Once again it seems to have been AGES since I’ve blogged!  In my defence, I have been around at home very little lately, and also the vodafone server appears to have moved again, because my little spot in the loungeroom that used to get pretty good reception now gets pretty average reception, so I usually get frustrated with teh interwebs before I get a chance to post a blog entry.

Anyway, enough with the excuses!

Since I last blogged I have been up to Hokitika/Greymouth twice, two weeks in a row.  Two Wednesdays ago I went up for the day with Samson and another workmate who needed us to look after his little girl while he went to an appointment.  She wasn’t sure about me to begin with but on the car ride up she kept randomly looking at me and cracking up laughing, which made me crack up laughing, so the boys in the front thought we were both slightly mad.  Was a pretty easy babysitting experience – only took half an hour or so, so we took her to the playground and mucked around on the slides etc.

Then went adventuring in Greymouth for a bit – I attempted to sit my Learner’s Licence, which was a bit of a fail since I forgot to bring any ID with me.  I did however buy some new saucepans and a vacuum cleaner, which I was quite excited about!  I am apparently becoming quite domestic.

Last week I went up to Hokitika on Monday for my stepsister’s 21st.  I got a forced day off (at my work if client numbers are down you sometimes get extra random days off work – unpaid so some people hate them but I’m not bothered) on Monday, but my weekend’s not until Wednesday, and I’d had time off denied for the 21st, so I went up anyway and called in sick on Tuesday, which I actually didn’t feel as guilty about as I thought I would!  It was probably my first sick day since December anyway.

It was a pretty low-key 21st – the whanau (dad, stepmum, other stepsister, stepsister’s dad and stepmum, and her fiance) went for a walk and lunch, then had a nice dinner at a restaurant.  I missed the birthday breakfast coz I only came up on the bus in the morning but that’s generally the most festive part of a birthday at their house.

Hung out there for Tuesday and Wednesday too, and spent some time at my oldest friend’s house with her and one of her little girls (the other one was at preschool).

Wednesday night I got a ride back home with my flatmate and her boyfriend (my next door neighbour) who had been in Greymouth for the day.  We were about 25 minutes from home when the car started to die, and my flatmate lost control and almost drove into a fence – corrected to land us in a ditch, luckily upright!  Her boyfriend and I pushed it out and it lasted about another 4 or 5 km, so we parked it by the roadside and started walking – we were about 6km from where some of our workmates live.  We’d only been walking for about 5 minutes though when Samson and another workmate rocked up – they’d been away for the weekend and I’d wondered if they’d be along soon, since I knew they were due back around that time.  So they towed the car back home – the lights died on the car and my neighbour said it was possibly the most terrifying driving experience he’d ever had – he couldn’t see anything most of the way!  So that was an interesting night.

The last week has been notable for the number of Boots that have occurred.  I have mentioned this awesome tradition before, but as a reminder – when someone leaves my workplace, they have to scull a boot full of alcohol.  Usually beer, but sometimes a random mixture of what everyone else is drinking, and sometimes they add spirits too.  There have been three of these events in the last week, which is kind of sad, because all three people who have left are pretty awesome.  One of the reception girls has left too (her partner is one of the guides who left), who’s a good friend of mine, and who I will miss a lot.  Ressies don’t have to do a boot, but we had a girls’ night on Sunday.  All of Team V (girl guides), most of the reception staff, and a couple of other girls came along, all brought dessert and wine, and had a pretty amazing night.  My neighbour tried to crash early on and steal dessert, but I tackled him and Juno grabbed the desserts out of his reach.  Girl Power!    We all scored each other’s desserts and tallied up the votes.  I came last with my Banoffee Pie, because two of the girls hate bananas (one of them thinks they’re ‘wrong’ lol).  First place went to Juno, who had brought fruit salad – I think we were all glad of an island of healthiness among the puddings and eclairs!  We tucked the guest of honour into bed at about 12.30, after possibly a little too much wine on her part.  There’d only been 4 of us for the last couple of hours, and we broke out the Spice Girls, etc on my laptop and danced.  I believe there are some quite awesome photos and videos in existence

Her partner did his boot on Tuesday night.  It was pretty horrible – I felt too ill to watch the end of it because (if you aren’t too squeamish, highlight the next bit, but be warned, it’s pretty gross!) he’d actually vomited into the boot at some point during the proceedings and was drinking a horrible mixture of that and beer – I have a pretty strong stomach but that was just disgusting.

I went to bed pretty early that night since I was ridiculously tired – I had a big day on the ice on Sunday and still hadn’t recovered.  It rained a whole heap on Saturday and the glacier was pretty slick (rain melts the surface layer of crunchy ice and makes steps disappear).  I was on a Full Day trip and ended up with the last group (usually the least confident and slower people), including two kids.  It’s pretty unusual to have kids on a full day, especially on a day like Sunday, but my senior guide that day has enormous faith in my guiding abilities and likes to give me the most difficult groups he can.  Kids, because they are smaller, have less traction on the ice since they don’t have the weight to really stomp down on the ice.  The groups in front of me didn’t cut much, and I took the wrong turn at some point and ended up taking the more difficult track that the first three groups had taken.  So I pretty much had to cut every step we took and hardly spoke to my group at all, which I hate!

Had a pretty relaxing day yesterday though – stayed in bed until 2pm, which I don’t think I’ve ever done before in my life, and hung out with Samson watching movies.

And now it’s my Sunday and I’m going to do some cleaning and potentially some napping.  Yay!

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